ERNEST HEMINGWAY - Premium Edition. Ernest Hemingway

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СКАЧАТЬ don’t think it is.”

      “Don’t you want to?”

      “I have to.”

      We were sitting now like two strangers. On the right was the Parc Montsouris. The restaurant where they have the pool of live trout and where you can sit and look out over the park was closed and dark. The driver leaned his head around.

      “Where do you want to go?” I asked. Brett turned her head away.

      “Oh, go to the Select.”

      “Café Select,” I told the driver. “Boulevard Montparnasse.” We drove straight down, turning around the Lion de Belfort that guards the passing Montrouge trams. Brett looked straight ahead. On the Boulevard Raspail, with the lights of Montparnasse in sight, Brett said: “Would you mind very much if I asked you to do something?”

      “Don’t be silly.”

      “Kiss me just once more before we get there.”

      When the taxi stopped I got out and paid. Brett came out putting on her hat. She gave me her hand as she stepped down. Her hand was shaky. “I say, do I look too much of a mess?” She pulled her man’s felt hat down and started in for the bar. Inside, against the bar and at tables, were most of the crowd who a been at the dance.

      “Hello, you chaps,” Brett said. “I’m going to have a drink.”

      “Oh, Brett! Brett!” the little Greek portrait-painter, who called himself a duke, and whom everybody called Zizi, pushed up to her. “I got something fine to tell you.”

      “Hello, Zizi,” Brett said.

      “I want you to meet a friend,” Zizi said. A fat man came up.

      “Count Mippipopolous, meet my friend Lady Ashley.”

      “How do you do?” said Brett.

      “Well, does your Ladyship have a good time here in Paris?” asked Count Mippipopolous, who wore an elk’s tooth on his watch-chain.

      “Rather,” said Brett.

      “Paris is a fine town all right,” said the count. “But I guess you have pretty big doings yourself over in London.”

      “Oh, yes,” said Brett. “Enormous.”

      Braddocks called to me from a table. “Barnes,” he said, “have a drink. That girl of yours got in a frightful row.”

      “What about?”

      “Something the patronne’s daughter said. A corking row. She was rather splendid, you know. Showed her yellow card and demanded the patronne’s daughter’s too. I say it was a row.”

      “What finally happened?”

      “Oh, some one took her home. Not a bad-looking girl. Wonderful command of the idiom. Do stay and have a drink.”

      “No,” I said. “I must shove off. Seen Cohn?”

      “He went home with Frances,” Mrs. Braddock put in.

      “Poor chap, he looks awfully down,” Braddocks said.

      “I dare say he is,” said Mrs. Braddocks.

      “I have to shove off,” I said. “Good night.”

      I said good night to Brett at the bar. The count was buying champagne. “Will you take a glass of wine with us, sir?” he asked.

      “No. Thanks awfully. I have to go.”

      “Really going?” Brett asked.

      “Yes,” I said. “I’ve got a rotten headache.”

      “I’ll see you to-morrow?”

      “Come in at the office.”

      “Hardly.”

      “Well, where will I see you?”

      “Anywhere around five o’clock.”

      “Make it the other side of town then.”

      “Good. I’ll be at the Crillon at five.”

      “Try and be there,” I said.

      “Don’t worry,” Brett said. “I’ve never let you down, have I?”

      “Heard from Mike?”

      “Letter to-day.”

      “Good night, sir,” said the count.

      I went out onto the sidewalk and walked down toward the Boulevard St. Michel, passed the tables of the Rotonde, still crowded, looked across the street at the Dome, its tables running out to the edge of the pavement. Some one waved at me from a table, I did not see who it was and went on. I wanted to get home. The Boulevard Montparnasse was deserted. Lavigne’s was closed tight, and they were stacking the tables outside the Closerie des Lilas. I passed Ney’s statue standing among the new-leaved chestnut-trees in the arc-light. There was a faded purple wreath leaning against the base. I stopped and read the inscription: from the Bonapartist Groups, some date; I forget. He looked very fine, Marshal Ney in his top-boots, gesturing with his sword among the green new horse-chestnut leaves. My flat was just across the street, a little way down the Boulevard St. Michel.

      There was a light in the concierge’s room and I knocked on the door and she gave me my mail. I wished her good night and went up-stairs. There were two letters and some papers. I looked at them under the gas-light in the dining-room. The letters were from the States. One was a bank statement. It showed a balance of $2432.60. I got out my check-book and deducted four checks drawn since the first of the month, and discovered I had a balance of $1832.60. I wrote this on the back of the statement. The other letter was a wedding announcement. Mr. and Mrs. Aloysius Kirby announce the marriage of their daughter Katherine—I knew neither the girl nor the man she was marrying. They must be circularizing the town. It was a funny name. I felt sure I could remember anybody with a name like Aloysius. It was a good Catholic name. There was a crest on the announcement. Like Zizi the Greek duke. And that count. The count was funny. Brett had a title, too. Lady Ashley. To hell with Brett. To hell with you, Lady Ashley.

      I lit the lamp beside the bed, turned off the gas, and opened the wide windows. The bed was far back from the windows, and I sat with the windows open and undressed by the bed. Outside a night train, running on the street-car tracks, went by carrying vegetables to the markets. They were noisy at night when you could not sleep. Undressing, I looked at myself in the mirror of the big armoire beside the bed. That was a typically French way to furnish a room. Practical, too, I suppose. Of all the ways to be wounded. I suppose it was funny. I put on my pajamas and got into bed. I had the two bull-fight papers, and I took their wrappers off. One was orange. The other yellow. They would both have the same news, so whichever I read first would spoil the other. Le Toril was the better paper, so I started to read it. I read it all the way through, including the Petite Correspondance and the Cornigrams. I blew out the lamp. Perhaps I would be able to sleep.

      My head started to work. The old grievance. Well, СКАЧАТЬ